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Alum Cave Bluffs Trail
In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this trail goes from Newfound Gap Road to the top of Mount LeConte. Here are several pictures of the trail up to the bluffs, starting at the trailhead and heading uphill. The bluffs are about half way to the top of LeConte in terms of distance, but not quite half way with regard to effort.
The park service sign pictured to the right says "Experience the rich variety of trees and forest communities in the park as you hike the trail to Alum Cave Bluffs and Mount LeConte. The first segment follows Alum Cave Creek through northern hardwood and hemlock forests to arch rock. On the way to Alum Cave Bluffs you enter a heath bald where trees give way to rhododendron and mountain laurel. From the bluffs it is a strenuous hike through a spruce-fir forest to the top of Mount LeConte, one of the Smokies' steepest and highest mountains." In fact, at 6593 feet, it is the third highest. According to my guide book by Kenneth Wise, Clingman's Dome is the highest, and Mount Guyot is the second.
These pictures of the trail are mostly in sequential order. I have a friend who is planning to hike the trail later this summer, and I wanted to take lots of pictures to help paint an acurate picture of what the trail is like.
It is fun to take pictures of swift water in the woods. Since the ambient light is usually relatively low, it makes for a great lesson in basic photography. Here are two pictures of the same features, one with a fast shutter and open aperture, and one with a more closed aperture and a slow shutter. For those of you who want to experiment with the shutter settings on your camera, I find that settings in the neighborhood of 1/5th to 1/10th of a second will make swift water appear blurry. Since everything but the water is sitting still, it doesn't appear blurry as long as you hold the camera still. If you want the water to appear smooth and painted-looking, use the slow speed. If you want to suspend glistening droplets in flight, use as fast of a shutter as you can.
I don't know much about geology, but also took lots of pictures of rocks along the trail. Just as there is a huge diversity of plants as you climb the mountain, the rocks change too.
Click on the last picture of the row above to see a hole in the ridge. It is amazing how things like that can happen.
The bluffs don't look so big in the pictures until you see a person in them for reference. The last picture in the row above has a person located just before the hand rail. Look at the larger version and see if you can spot him.
For pictures of the rest of the trail, click here.
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| This page last modified 03/27/09 | |||||